132 episodes
The Endless Knot Mark Sundaram & Aven McMaster
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- History
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4.6 • 18 Ratings
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Aven & Mark discuss etymology, history, literature, language, and cocktails, and the sometimes surprising connections between them all.
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Says Who, with Anne Curzan
We spoke with Dr. Anne Curzan about her new book, “Says Who? A Kinder, Funner Usage Guide for Everyone Who Cares about Words”. We talk about language change, inner grammandos, the benefits of learning the rules of texting from one’s students, and of course, surprising connections!
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The Vesuvius Challenge, with Stephen Parsons
Buried deep under volcanic ash lie hundreds of burnt scrolls containing texts from the first century. A new project is driving the work to try to read these chunks of carbon, to uncover new works and open new doors into the past. We spoke to one of the leaders of this project, Dr. Stephen Parsons, about the Vesuvius Challenge, the technical aspects of ‘virtual unrolling’, the possibilities of new classical texts, the development of new ways of doing scholarship, and more.
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Swimming in History, with Karen Carr
We talked to Dr. Karen Carr about the global history of swimming — in myth, folktale, and history. Who swam, who didn’t, and how do the stories different cultures told reflect these patterns? We also talked a bit about Dr. Carr’s next book, all about silver, women, and textiles.
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An Ecological Chain
We discuss the language and history of the ecological sciences, all the way back to the ancient Greeks, and the development of the food chain and food web models of ecological systems. And apologies for the unscheduled hiatus!
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A Brief History of Misogyny
We talk to Melanie Racette-Campbell about her new book, “The Crisis of Masculinity in the Age of Augustus”, and discuss why Roman elite men were particularly vulnerable to a societal transformation that changed their role in the state. What did it mean to be a good man in ancient Rome, and how and why did that change?
Melanie’s book is available here
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A Brief History of Misogyny
The word “chauvinism” is an unlikely eponym, but it turns out that the story behind it has all sorts of interesting connections. And our discussion of those connections also leads us into the long history of misogyny in the western world, from Eve and Pandora to the Virgin Mary, courtly love, and Victorian womanhood.
Cocktail: Pandora’s Jar, from Nectar of the Gods
“By Jingo” song
Hesiod’s Works and Days
Hesiod’s Theogony
Semonides 7
Transcript of this episode
This episode on YouTube
Our Patreon page
Redbubble store
This podcast is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License
The Endless Knot RSS
Customer Reviews
Amazing Surprises
Fascinating conversation leading down unexpected paths. In depth exploration of history and language. Erudite but fun. Guaranteed you’ll learn something every episode.
Charming and engrossing
Aven and Mark's conversations are wide-ranging, intelligent, well-researched, and well-informed. Definitely worth a listen.
Informative and interesting but please be neutral
I enjoy this podcast quite a bit and enjoy the bits of history and etymology that I glean from it. A piece of hopefully constructive criticism I can impart is that Aven seems a little condescending to Mark on occasion, which can be a little uncomfortable for the audience, but which is something that could be fixed easily. Also - and I understand this is a point of personal preference - while I understand that contemporary topics will inevitably work their way into discussions of history, it would be absolutely splendid if the audience could never guess which direction a host leaned politically (for example) or how they felt about the cause du jour. I know it’s a fun show and you guys get into cocktails, and certainly nobody should censor themselves, but I feel uncomfortable listening to someone I disagree with if I’m just listening in for the etymology. It has become harder and harder to escape cultural and political tensions in media and this podcast was one of my cubbies away from the chaos. As a suggested remedy, if you do broach a sensitive topic try and be fair to all sides - maybe before the gin comes out ;)